-The Catholic Church has excommunicated Brazilian priest Roberto Francisco Daniel (known colloquially as Padre Beto) for his defense of open marriages and his defense of same-sex love. More than a symbolic move, the excommunication marks a split between official church hierarchy and a growing strain of moderate and even progressive Catholicism among some parishioners in Brazil.

-A new scientific study suggests that Latin America is facing a “cancer epidemic” due to challenges in diagnosing and treating cancer, as well as to increasingly unhealthy diets, higher levels of tobacco-smoking and alcohol consumption, and an increasingly inactive lifestyle.

-A few weeks after Chile ruled that General Alberto Bachelet, whose daughter Michelle governed as President from 2006-2010, died under torture during the Pinochet regime, authorities have charged two military officials with his death. After the coup of September 11, Pinochet’s regime purged the military of officers who were loyal to constitutional president Salvador Allende, including Bachelet.

-Colombian ex-general Mauricio Santoyo, who was the commander of the military police under president Álvaro Uribe and who has been tied to paramilitary groups and the drug trade, turned himself into Drug Enforcement Agency officials today to face trial in the United States. Santoyo is just the latest in a longline of officials who were top-level politicians and advisors with ties to both the Uribe government and to paramilitary groups during the president’s time in office from 2002 to 2010.

-Lillie points us to this article (in Spanish) of children who were sent to a home and were forced to live in harsh conditions after their parents were arrested and “disappeared” during the Argentine dictatorship. While the details are horrific, unfortunately, the cases of Argentine children kidnapped from their murdered parents was not uncommon and continues to shape the memory struggles from the regime nearly 30 years after it ended.

-I’ve talked plenty here about the Argentine dictatorship’s crimes against humanity, but human rights abuses were not the limits of the regime’s abuse of power. As investigations into military officials’ past acts continue, authorities’ economic crimes and abuses are also coming to light, revealing the greedy side of authoritarian rule.

-A Guatemalan court sentenced an ex-soldier to 6,060 years in prison for his role in the massacre of civilians. Pedro Pimentel, now 55, was convicted for his role in the Dos Erres massacre that took the lives of 201 people in December 1982. While the 6000+ year sentence is symbolic (Pimentel can legally only serve 50 years), it is still an important step towards justice for one of the more gruesome events in what was a horribly gruesome 36-year civil war in the Central American country.

-Bolivian president Evo Morales appeared before the UN to again defend the indigenous practice of chewing coca leaves. The leaves, which function as a mild stimulant in the same way as coffee or tea when consumed in their natural state, are also chemically processed and refined into cocaine.

-Finally, returning to Guatemala, Greg provides this answer for anybody who wonders why Latin Americanists may be more-than-occasionally skeptical of the US government’s rhetoric on and policy towards Latin America [hint: “the Guatemalan people themselves” most certainly did not rise up to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz in 1954in a coup that ultimately led to a 30+ year civil war that left more than 250,000 Guatemalans dead].

-Over the weekend, Simon Romero had an interesting article up on Haitians moving to Brazil (on which I’ll have more to say later). The UN has declared that the recent migration of Haitians to Brazil is not a humanitarian crisis. While many Haitians who have fled to Brazil have claimed they are refugees, the UN has ruled that Brazil’s willingness to grant humanitarian visas was a generous act for Haitians to improve their lives.

-A Salvadoran judge has ruled that it is too late to seek prosecution in the murder of famed leftist poet Roque Dalton Garcia. Roque Dalton had been a member of leftist organizations that had become divided over tactics and strategy, and in 1975, his opponents in a small cell ordered his execution for betraying revolutionary ideals. He died on May 10 of that year, but his poetry, which beautifully blends themes of love, politics, and death, continues to resonate with readers today.

-The ongoing war between loggers and elites on the one hand and indigenous groups and environmentalists on the other has claimed another victim, as loggers burned an indigenous child to death while trying to illegally buy wood on an indigenous reservation.

-Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 is facing another legal challenge, as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the ACLU asked a federal court to block the parts of the law that prohibit day laborers from looking for work on the streets, arguing the prohibitions discriminate against the right of some to work in the U.S. Other groups have already challenged the law on other grounds, and the Supreme Court will rule on whether or not the law is constitutional after a lower court suspended portions of the bill that required police to ask for documentation from people stopped on suspicion of criminal activity.

-An undocumented immigrant who became a quadriplegic in a construction accident and who was moved to Mexico against his will has died in Mexico. Quelino Ojeda Jimenez was injured in August 2010, and in February of 2011, the hospital that had been taking care of Jimenez, who could not eat or breath on his own either, decided to deport him.

-The United States is not the only country to deport undocumented immigrants. In the first 11 months of 2011, Mexico deported nearly 50,000 undocumented immigrants back to their home countries in Central America, with nearly half of them returning to (and coming from) Guatemala.

-Peruvian demonstrators resumed their protests against a planned gold mine in the state of Cajamarca in Northern Peru. Over 2000 people, including the governor of the state, participated in the protest against the $4.8 billion dollar mine over concerns regarding the irreversible environmental damage the mine will cause.